Alex Rider: Stormbreaker

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Sorry, I know James Bond. And you, Mr. Rider, are no James Bond.

By Craig Harris

Alex Rider: Stormbreaker, a British film that has, as of this writing, yet to make the leap across the pond in the Hollywood circuit, has been converted into a bunch of licensed videogames by kid-happy publisher THQ. The film's move to the Nintendo DS offers a lot of bang for the buck, but ultimately is an incredible a mess that tries to do tons of different gameplay styles for a huge amount of variety. The development was clearly spread incredibly thin, so much so that it really doesn't do anything right.

The Nintendo DS game, developed by THQ's stand-by Japanese handheld development team Altron, lifts its action sequences straight out of the situations in the theatrical flick. The way the development team tries to tell the story of Alex Rider's rise as a teenage secret agent and his first mission to uncover the mystery of the Stormbreaker is an absolute joke. We're all familiar with the limitations of the cartridge medium, and it would be a little foolish to expect anything truly cinematic considering the limitations of the Nintendo DS hardware, but come on -- dialogue is told through text over still photos of the movie that doesn't even match the proper scene. It's like the design team didn't even try to make the script readable, and just assumed that the only people who will play this game have already walked out of the theater after a Stormbreaker screening.

This development laziness carries over to the actual gameplay. On one hand, the game has an enormous variety of different challenges to capitalize on all of the situations that happen to Alex throughout the course of the two hour film. So not only are you going to get a lengthy amount of hand-to-hand combat, but you'll also hop onto a motorcycle for some Road Rash action, you'll grab a pool cue and play a round of Snooker, and you'll hit the Army's training course to dodge and weave obstacles as they zip past you on a slide down a cable. On the other hand, none of these designs are any good...with the exception of Snooker, a surprisingly solid pool engine that's, unfortunately, completely ruined by the fact that it can only be played against an AI opponent that couldn't hit a target the size of a beach ball.

But the biggest problem is the core game design that surrounds all of these awful mini-challenges. The hand-to-hand combat of Alex Rider: Stormbreaker is incredibly clunky and unresponsive, with poor collision detection that's enhanced by the game's horribly robotic and rigid animation. Alex animates with the stiffness of a single-jointed GI Joe action figure, and the enemy characters rarely, if ever, swarm Alex in anything but a one-on-one fight. The graphic engine handles the load well enough by providing that silky-smooth 60 frames per second rate, but the artists throw some really awful visuals at this engine, like grotesquely angular, low-poly character models and bland textures lining the scenery.

Players are required to run around and explore the environment for clues and pick-ups, but the level designers tease players with modeled staircases that are blocked off by invisible walls as well as stacked crates to ledges that can't be climbed. Stormbreaker also lifts from the design book of Metal Gear Solid by providing a bit of "sneak around the enemies" stealth element, but even this is ruined by a poor camera system that makes it difficult to tell where the enemies are and where they're looking.

The Verdict

Ultimately, Alex Rider: Stormbreaker for the Nintendo DS had the potential of being a younger-skewing Tomb Raider design, but it looks like an ambitious design was cut down before it could reach its potential. Or maybe the game was just mishandled. Either way, this game just isn't good.